DIPS OF INK.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 603, 1 April 1876, Page 5 (Supplement)

DIPS OF INK.

By Ykndys. *

A small drop of ink, Fulling like dew upon » thought produces That which makes thousands — perhaps millions — ihink. — Byson. And so the lawyer turned over another page of tho sketch, took and disclosed a picture of the classic city aforesaid. A view of its one street with its noble title. It has grown since this drawing was taken. I saw it 'only fcho other 'day, and there are at least three new houses in it. You laugh ! but remember there are only about twenty now, the3e new ones included, ftear old street ! Aye, old ! with all thy newness, how I love thee ! I have watched thy progress for many years — or at least thy growth, for I do not think thou hast improved. I love not the new faces I see iv thee now, as I loved the old ones ! For I was young when first I knew the 6, and thou art getting less romantic every day. I know that this is selfishness not to feel overjoyed at thy advancement ; but we are all such selfish creatui'es. What care I for thy good, when I see thee losing thy old-fashioned loolc and developing mtb a rowdy colonial township? When 1 can hear afar the shrill whistle of the iron horse drawing nearer and nearer 1 Let me fell of you as I nave known You, ere you 'pass away and become another place, while there is yet within you one familiar faoe. While the river banks yet re-echo the old names. Perhaps there is "a ludicrous side to all this. I dare say my friends around the table are laughing "at me for my pains, and are wishing ,the twopenny halfpenny little place in Jericho. I dont care for them though, if I am sure of one listener, good or bad. Not that lam going to give you a history dt "the place. No, no ; hot I ; I never troubled myself about that. 1 am only going to say a word or two about my feelings and impressions. I.bave never lived 'here, though often and often I have 'loitered 'thxoagh 'it, as my fancy 'is

loitering' through it now, in the hearing of the sweet murmur ot the river, which ever and anon breaks into hoarser music with 'the roaring of the whirlpool, and amid the scent of the rich clover too, that xs borne in from the luxuriant meadows that stretch far away on all sides. There is something about the buildings — co nrte at least — that makes them seem 30 old. I dont know What it is, only, however, about "those that were built before my advent. Here for instance is this old hostelry that stands near the river. I can never get it out of my head that it is hot at least a hundred years old. I dare say the decayed look has a great deal to do with it. Aye, it'has sadly fallen from its high estate — not morally — but physically. Spite of its smart addition, there is an air of desolation about ifc that quite oppresses one. T!t seems to be fast resolving back to mother earth. It has long since ceased to be the place where entertainments are held. The one or two public buildings have robbed it of all that, 'and the long room that "once resounded with music and song, and wherein in the pastyea,rs I remember to have laughed and cried at the scenes enacted before me, where I have been alternately sad, merry, and thoughtful, now alas is given up to the jingling of the .glasses and the rattling of the dice ! ISic transit gloria mundi. When next I visit the old place in the years that are to come the plane of this old " pub " may know it no more ! Sweet are the associations of the old smithy. That too has never altered ; as far back as I cau go I hear the same sounds. The sparks fly upward in the same way to-day as they did when I 'first watched them. Tliint was a most memorable time ! A warm night in the Sfirst spring of my life in New Zmlau-l, — ,1 soft drizzling rain was falling. It seemed to me that the sky was crying with dolight, just as a maiden wo a ps with too much happiness : for the tears of <v great grief come down in torrents like the st »r«hs of winter. It was bd this night that first I watched the sparks hurrying away up into tho- darkness among the rain drops, and into my head came a fancy that somehow these two were related oh 1 ? to another, for as the sparks met the rain drops coming down they seemed to say — " Welcome, sweet cousins! do Am there, balow the chimney through which we have ascended, are all our relations, and the blacksmith is shaping them into tools wherewith to till the soil, that the husbandman may sew the ! seed, and that you may enter in and make the earth fruitful," and the rain drops went "twinkling" down delighted to think they were of some use. My friends think this a very poetical idea. Whether they are right or not it is a bond which binds •ne to the old smithy, which time can never break, and thus it is that I assent as ah insult to myself the presence of the other forges th»t have, sprung up of late, not that I love mohbply — oh no ! to ase an expressive, though very inelegant phrase, I am "deafl huts " on monbply of all kinds, except 'perhaps when it aftects me. And here .again comes in that human selfishness ITiave been talking of; but the world is not going to stand still because of my whims, that's one comfort ! I might say about its (the streets) stores and its brewery (which sendeth forth another agreeable odour eo,ual to the clover), but I will forbear} 'for -me these have no inner lift

There is a sameness about all the stores; they are all painted alike in pale drab with the pannelling a shade lightet. The same goods are behind the counter ; the same faces smile uj&n you ; the same fingers deftly pack up your pound of tea or sugar. What then, I ask you, is there to interest us in these ? Bot the brewery ! Ido not speak thus of that. There is something about 'that which bids me look at it for more than a passing moment. "What tales could those casks say if they could but speak ! What tales ,of conviviality could they not tell of! What brilliant anecdotes could they hot relate ! What deep wails of anguish too would they not r^-eoho ! What burning oaths and curses not repeat ! Time was when the also gave house room to a flour mill, Vhen the "dusty miller " was seen flitting to and fro amid the wheaten snow storm ; bat that is num. be red among the things that Were, and the mill bands are fast mixing with the cobwebs. A. long ugly old place it is, the lower story of grey stone and the upper one of wood, turning grey too, to match the stone. " You are forgetting the churches," said the lawyer. Aye, so, I am, though they are not in, the "street. They t are somewhat quiet buildings. These little churches, and one is getting to need crutches, though perhaps no one sees it's distress, hidden as it is among the evergreen trees around. Thede trees are surely favoured, for they overshadow another " House of God " somewhat more pretentious, wherein I myself have sometimes sat and listened to the words of life. Wbat might I not say of other things around ? I could speak of the little waterfall, but, alas, I would only weary you, and my pen is drawing- to the bottom of the page* This only will I say, as much to you as to the clergyman to a question of whose it forms an answer : That here as everywhere you can build in your fancy oat of material, no matter how rough, if you have lived here long enough to make a friend and to see that friend pass away, a wonder land of beauty and poetry that shall abide with you for ever. " I know a place," said the poet, " a long streak of grey beach, bounded by low, barfen, dreary hills, lulled by the music of the melancholy sea, where the only land mark for miles is a ruined tower, the remains of an old castle, where no human being dwelletb, yet whioh my fancy can turn into a very fairy land, peopled with forms that once lived and danced within these old walls, and carpeted with the sward that once covered those sterile hills. I see the swelling waves afive with the argosies that once crowded the roadstead, when perhaps the rest of the world "vould only see it as it is, an uninviting strip of grey sea shore. Here are a few more yersea, , by my friend 'the lawyer this time. He says that if the lines " take " he will continue the poem, and divide it into cantos :